


Of All the Gin Joints in All the Galaxy

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season 5 spec, just sth born from that great new pic of iain, not really - Freeform, spoilers only so far as it references the cast photo released today
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 17:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12846057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: Saw that fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine new promo pic of Iain and couldn't resist. Intended to write smut but this got very talky. Just know that it's all imbued with an intense enjoyment of Fitz's whole space look.





	Of All the Gin Joints in All the Galaxy

After innumerable days spent searching, after a half dozen galactic battles with a half dozen species, after scrabbling their way to control of the ship, they don’t even receive a moment’s notice.

“Someone’s docking on starboard!” May shouts over the intercom.

“How the hell did we miss their approach?” Coulson demands.

“Cloaked,” Mack says grimly, looking up from one of the displays.

“Cloaked? But how would anyone out here know how to—” Hunter stops mid-sentence, locking eyes with Daisy, who breathes out, “No way.”

“Eyes up, everyone,” May cuts in, having missed the revelation, as she levels her blaster at the air lock. The others follow suit.

A tense, breathless moment, the swivel and release on the lock, and the door slides aside. A scrappy group of people – well, some looking a little less _human_ – appear in the dim blue light of the transfer passage, hands on their undrawn weapons but otherwise eerily at ease, unconcerned.

Coulson glances at May, who shrugs. “Who’s in charge of your merry band?” he queries. “This is Agent Coulson of SHIELD, I’d like to negotiate with your leader.”

A voice from the back answers him immediately. “We prefer to be called an egalitarian collective, actually.”

Yoyo and Daisy both swear at the same time, and when Fitz shoulders his way to the front of the group still standing in the doorway, one side of his mouth ticks up in a self-satisfied way, like he’s proud of the effect his entrance has had.

“Of all the gin joints in all the galaxy,” Mack chuckles, at the same time that Hunter exclaims, “You got yourself a leather jacket! About time, mate.”

But the loudest voice is Jemma’s.

“Where the _hell_ have you been?” she snaps, and Fitz has only a second to perceive from the wetness of her eyes the true nature of her anger before she’s flung herself upon him, the force of the impact fortunately dampened by their paired jackets.

“Looking for you,” Fitz says weakly, his voice rough despite the apparent bravado. He cradles the back of Jemma’s head with one hand but keeps his chin a safe distance from nestling atop her hair. “And someone had to pay the diner bill.”

Jemma drops back on her heels, brushing her palm against his chest before stepping away from him, looking suddenly uncertain.

“Glad to have you back, Agent Fitz,” Coulson smiles as they all finally lower their weapons.

“Are you going to introduce us?” Yoyo teases.

“Right, sorry – these are the guys.” Fitz gestured behind him; everyone waved. “Guys, this is my team.” 

Hunter scoffs. “Helpful, mate.”

“I told you, I’m not their leader or anything!” Fitz protests. “You’re all adults, you can introduce yourselves.”

Everyone hesitates – “Space has been kind of a bitch,” Hunter explains. “Trust issues.” – but then Daisy steps forward, hand out and upturned in a gesture they’ve seen other space travelers use. “I’m Daisy.”

Fitz moves aside as the two teams converge, shaking hands and holstering weapons, and Mack takes the opportunity to pat Fitz on the back. “You gotta tell me how you got cloaking working out here,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ve been trying to replicate your work from back home but—”

“I will, I promise, just – later?” Fitz scratches at the curls just over his ear, squinting slightly. “It’s been pretty nonstop for the last few days, what with commandeering a ship and tracking your location and all. Maybe – Jemma, could you show me the crew quarters?”

She’s already halfway into an intensely fascinating discussion with one of Fitz’s new allies and looks up in surprise and not a small bit of alarm. Mack, standing too close to miss the exchange, is reminded forcibly of another time he’d stood between them on a plane, the air taut with misunderstandings and confusion and desire.

“I’m sure Mack could—”

“Nah, you got it,” Mack cuts her off, meeting her knowing glare with an innocent smile. “Sure you two have a lot to catch up on.”

 

 

He looks _good_. And not only physically, though Jemma won’t deny – would frankly be unable to deny – that the thick black leather, red kerchief slung just belong his Adam’s apple, and significant scruff and curls are a _very_ flattering look for him. There’s a levelness to the way he meets her gaze, a sturdiness in his shoulders. A shy calm she’s not seen in nearly a year.

“Do I have something on my face?” Fitz asks her without a hint of teasing, though he’s obviously caught her staring. He rubs the back of his gloved hand across his cheekbone as he walks the perimeter of the bunk, investigating the furnishings.

“A rather shameful amount of engine grease, as a matter of fact,” she informs him. Though really it’s only shameful for the effects it’s having on her, seeing him like that.

“Water was in short supply,” he murmurs, not by way of an apology or explanation, more just… supplying facts to help her make sense of the situation. “Can’t decide if I want to nap or shower first.”

“Is that all you want to do?” she asks reflexively, because subtext has been one of the delicious, dangerous flavors of their relationship since before it was romantic. “Is that the only reason you came looking for us, to get a hot bath?”

He stops, rotates slowly on his heels, the motion lithe despite his heavy boots, and cocks his head, feigning confusion. “Do you need me to tinker with something? I told Mack the cloaking could wait—“

“I’ve got a few things you could tinker with, but I’d rather Mack stay out of them.”

He barks out a laugh that somehow emphasizes the tightness of the blue sweater across his chest – or maybe she’s staring again. “That’s a terrible line, Jemma.”

“If you’d stop being so obtuse, I wouldn’t need to use one. We’ve managed to spend a full five minutes talking about absolutely nothing!”

“True, but, well…” He exhales and looks at her with eyes suddenly so dark she actually shivers. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

He’s got that _damn smirk_ again, and the familiar phrase is all the invitation she needs. This time the force of her body against his slams his back against the closet doors and she’s curling her fingers over his ear and wrapping an arm full around his shoulders as she kisses him, kisses him to drown in him, kisses him to consume him and lose herself in him and find herself in him, because _shit_ if she doesn’t want him and bloody hell do they deserve this. She fumbles with his belt as he struggles to get her out of her jacket. He makes some wordless plea into her half-open mouth and she has to grip his neckerchief to keep from slipping clean to the floor as her legs go weak.

They stumble backwards towards the bed, both oblivious to the starry splendor outside the small window.

 

 

Fitz’s eyes slip shut again as Jemma runs her fingertips over his scruff. It’s an unfairly erotic sensation, but he’s too deeply bone-tired for that again, so he’s trying to absorb it into the broken parts of him, to remember it for later moments when she’s too far away, even just across the room, and he can live on the glow her touch inspires.

“What did they give to you that I couldn’t?”

Jemma whispers it so hoarsely he’s not certain she meant for him to hear it. He turns his head to the side to nuzzle her warm shoulder. “Hmm?”

“The others. The ones you brought with you. What were they able to give you that I couldn’t?”

He waits a beat longer, but even this cocoon of serenity isn’t worth the anguish he knows she must be putting herself through. He blinks up at her, curves the arm trapped under her body so he can lightly brush her bare hip. “I’m not following, Jem.”

“You’re _happy_ ,” she breathes, a bitter smile warring with tears again. “You’re _happy_ , and I’m so happy for that, but I’m also terribly selfish and I can’t help wondering why they helped you to heal and be so – so – so _you_ again, when I couldn’t!”

He wants to rush into an answer, to tease her about her idea of ‘terribly selfish’, to mask the truth, like he’s fought so hard to do with her in recent months. But the nearness of her is too compelling.

“Do you remember how much I struggled with my recovery, after the pod?”

It’s a measure of the deep tragedies they’ve slogged through together since then that her mouth only tightens a bit at the memories. She nods.

“I couldn’t see it at the time, because it was my first go at something like that, but – when I looked around in that diner and you were all gone, it all seemed clear. I took so long with my recovery because it was all I could see. I could only see the way my hand shook or the words I couldn’t find or the missions Coulson had to entirely rearrange to accommodate me. It was only when I had some external _purpose_ , something I needed to do that couldn’t wait for me to get my speech patterns back in order, that I got better.”

“So,” Jemma pronounces slowly, not in an expression of doubt but as an attempt of clarity, “only by ignoring your recovery could you fully engage in it?”

“Yes,” Fitz says eagerly, pleased she’s interpreting it that way rather than thinking about it as a form of repression on his part. “I’m too up in my head, you know that, I certainly know that – and the more I thought about needing to recover the more I got stuck. But when I stopped trying and just _did_ —”

“The singularity?” she murmurs, and they allow themselves to curl in towards each other in a laugh at the secret eroticism they now always associate with that particular corner of science.  

“When I just _did_ ,” Fitz presses on, “I recovered in the way that worked best for me on instinct. And the same was true this time around, not that I was bright enough to catch on by myself. In an odd way, if you lot hadn’t been taken, I might’ve gone on moping.”

“Processing, Fitz, not moping,” Jemma scolds affectionately.

“Right. Point is, I was so frantic to find you and make sure you were alright, even if you didn’t want to be with me anymore, that I stopped thinking about all the crap I’d done wrong and focused on the crisis at hand. I kind of just … forgot to hate myself.”

“So we’ll just keep you in perpetual crisis and you’ll be fine.”

“Til we can afford some proper therapy, yeah,” Fitz chuckles ruefully.

“And when did you figure out I do, in fact, still want to be with you?”

“About the thousandth time I replayed that hug in my mind.”

He doesn’t need to clarify which hug – she’s been revisiting it herself, every hour since the containment pod. Wondering if he felt as simultaneously broken and as she did. Missing his arms, craving the shape of him, hoping if she could only hold him a little bit every day, his sobs would slowly subside.

There are words that could fill the ensuing silence, but somehow they don’t need to. Jemma sighs, snuggling against him, eyes wandering to his new wardrobe scattered on the floor of the bunk. In a strange way, their current isolation, so far from home, somewhat reminiscent of one of their most traumatic separations, is still the most comforting. Billions of miles of stars in every direction, and the two of them curled together in the middle of it all.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> why yes that picture is now my phone background


End file.
